Thomas Pynchon

Any of these doors might open you to safety, but there may not be time…

Fences went up, and the gaucho became less free. It is our national tragedy. We are obsessed with building labyrinths, where before there was open plain and sky. To draw ever more complex patterns on the blank sheet. We cannot abide that openness: it is terror to us. Look at Borges. Look at the suburbs of Buenos Aires.

his tribe believed long ago that each sunset is a battle.

"The light came from above and below at the same time, so that everyone had two shadows: Cain's and Abel's, Gerhardt told us. It was at the height of his symbolist period. Later on he began to use more natural light, to shoot more on location."

that's bleak and bruise-purple as Peenemunde sunsets in the chill slow firing-weather…

Dancing the bad dream a-way…

"I'm here to help you see clearly. If you have doubts, we should air them, honestly, man to man. No reprisals. Hell, don't you think I've had doubts? Even Stalin's had them. We all have."

On certain days the wind brings aspirin-dust from the Bayer factory.

The people inhale it, and grow more tranquil.